Rittenhouse Railroaded: Team Claims Big Tech Tyrant Threw Him Off Its Platform for 1 Bogus Reason
“What’s in a name?” Juliet asked in the Shakespeare classic. In the world run by Big Tech, a rose by any other name would not smell as sweet.
Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was acquitted in November on self-defense grounds of killing two men and wounding a third during last year’s riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has apparently been banned from digital gaming giant Electronic Arts for using his real name.
Though Rittenhouse has been found not guilty, EA reportedly has declared that the name “Kyle Rittenhouse” violates corporate policy by referencing inappropriate “Violence, Terror, and Tragic Events.” Last week, the Instagram story of the account “thisiskylerittenhouse” showed an email from EA which said the requested username “breaks our Positive Play Charter,” according to the screenshot provided by Pop Topic.
The Instagram account in question was verified as Rittenhouse’s by the Twitter account belonging to his legal defense fund, FreeKyleUSA, on Dec. 6.
Instagram has been verified and is now live.https://t.co/jHSYPee0P9
— ?? Kyle Rittenhouse Legal Fund ?? (@freekyleusa) December 7, 2021
The Western Journal was not able to independently verify that EA denied Rittenhouse an account in his own name, and did not immediately receive a response when reaching out to EA for comment.
However, if the email allegedly sent by an EA spokesman is to be believed, an innocent man’s name violates the company’s Positive Play Charter because people who use it can “negatively disrupt or engage in harmful behavior.”
Huh? Can’t people use any name and negatively disrupt or engage in harmful behavior? What’s in a name, indeed.
Some gamers are not happy with EA over the reported Rittenhouse ban. Take online gamer “Thunderbuddy29,” for example. In an online video, Thunderbuddy29 claimed that EA is banning Rittenhouse because one of its games, Battlefield 2042, is getting a lot of negative reviews.
If this sounds like an inconsequential flare-up from a disgruntled gamer, disregard it.
But it wouldn’t be the first time Big Tech has banned Rittenhouse. Newsweek reported that Rittenhouse was banned, reinstated and banned again just days later by Instagram.
Hey @instgram why did you disable my account again?!
— Kyle Rittenhouse (@ThisIsKyleR) December 10, 2021
Facebook banned Rittenhouse and users who had positive things to say about him after his arrest, according to the BBC.
Brian Fishman, who was the head of Facebook’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations division at the time, explained the move on Twitter.
Yesterday we designated the shooting as a mass murder and removed the shooter’s accounts from Facebook & Instagram. Per standard practice in these situations, we are also removing praise and support of the shooter and have also blocked searches of his name on our platforms. 2/n
— Brian Fishman (@brianfishman) August 27, 2020
Do you long for the days when the accused was innocent until proven guilty? Rittenhouse has now been proven innocent. What else can he do? Why do do people keep treating him as if he is guilty? It doesn’t make sense.
And it’s not just Big Tech. The Arizona State University groups Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine, Multicultural Solidarity Coalition and MECHA de ASU recently demanded that Rittenhouse be banned from ASU to “reaffirm support for the multicultural center on campus as a safe space from White Supremacy,” according to Fox News.
Some went so far as to label him “murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.”
What’s in a name? In a world where social communication is largely controlled by Big Tech, a lot.
Rittenhouse probably wishes he wasn’t in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020. But he went there to defend people and their property from rioters. He went there to help.
Does his name deserve to be stricken from the record from here to eternity because he tried to help law-abiding citizens in need?
When progressives decide to go after someone — cancel culture in action — they attempt to sully a name until any mention of it provokes a gag reflex. Here, a rose by any other name does not smell as sweet. Here people can be made to think roses stink and the First Amendment is a tool of oppression.
We live in a society where Shakespeare and George Orwell are melded into some strange new beast. It’s a world where the adage, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say it,” is called “nonsense.”
That’s what the Communist Party USA had to say about free speech on its website — literally.
And that pretty much says it all.
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